Lost, misplaced or improperly delivered assets are common occurrences in shipment or asset tracking use-cases. One typical solution for tracking assets is to apply barcodes that require a reader to associate encoded information to a record (e.g., in an asset database) identifying details related to an asset and/or shipment. Looking up an item, however, requires network connectivity, such as a cloud connection, to permit gathering information related to an asset.
Companies, whether a shipper, or third party logistic companies and retail distributors, need a comprehensive solution to monitor the condition and location of assets during all stages of shipment, including when there is no or limited network connectivity, such as when there is no power beyond what might be affixed to an asset undergoing travel, e.g., by way of a power source located in a sensor of tag. In some transportation environments, such as shipping, sensors on a specific package need to seamlessly move along a route from a gateway (GW) on a network in, for example, an origination warehouse, to a destination, such as a customer. Along the route, the package may come in contact with multiple other GWs within the warehouse, or in connection with transportation carriers, e.g., trucks, airplanes, carts, etc.
Transition along the route to the destination may or may not have communication capability to reach a GW that can make routing decisions. An asset may be out of range of a GW when an exception arises, such as damage to the asset, and this might not be known until much later in the delivery process. For example, an asset may be delivered damaged, requiring a shipper to re-send the asset. This is not only damaging to customer relations, but it is expensive to the shipper since typically they must cover replacement costs in addition to multiple shipping costs. Moreover, it is noted that existing wireless sensor network protocols restrict scalability and demand greater radio activity than is often feasible for dense low-power networks as may be employed on asset tags.